August's ten

Of the 296 goals in Bobby Orr's brilliant ice-hockey career, one is known simply as 'The Goal': the deciding score in the 1970 Stanley Cup final, for Boston Bruins. The Boston rink was a clammy 32C and the players were drained by the three-all deadlock and the humidity. Forty seconds into overtime, Derek Sanderson set Orr up with a perfect pass but Orr was sent flying by St Louis defenceman Noel Picard even as he took the shot, and ended up celebrating in mid-air. The Bruins had their first Stanley Cup in 29 years.

2. Zina lays it on the line

Zina Garrison caused one of the great Wimbledon upsets in 1990 when she beat number-three seed Monica Seles in the quarter-finals, saving a match point with a running forehand down the line which was one of the best ever shots under pressure. All afternoon she had been going for the lines with what the Daily Telegraph called 'an extravagance that bordered on the reckless', before, trailing 7-6 in the third, she slipped and hurt her knee. The umpire offered Garrison an injury break, but 'I just ignored her. My adrenalin was so high it overtook everything.' That forehand came moments later and Seles was on her way out.

3. Sarazen puts Augusta on the map

With one swing of a wood, Gene Sarazen put the Masters at the forefront of world golf in 1935. Having missed the inaugural event at Augusta National in 1934, Sarazen played well enough on the unfamiliar course but was three shots behind Craig Wood, who was receiving the congratulations of the players in the clubhouse, when he arrived at the par-five 15th. He left his drive 235 yards from the green before he carried the pond with a perfect four wood. His ball struck the green and rolled in for an albatross two, the rarest score in golf. Sarazen parred the next three holes to finish tied with Wood and won the next day's play-off by five shots.

4. Blue is the colour for Higgins

Alex Higgins won his second world snooker title in 1982, in a final against Ray Reardon. But it was the 69 break in the penultimate frame of his semi-final against Jimmy White that was one of his finest passages of play. From 59-0 behind and one ball away from elimination, Higgins cleared the table, time and again sinking pots when out of position. John Virgo, the former player and now BBC commentator, reckoned his pot on the blue was the best shot ever seen. 'He screwed off the side cushion with all the side and finished up back down behind the black [spot],' Virgo said. 'I don't know how he did it to this day, and I'm not sure even he does.'

5. Robin Hood's silver arrow

When Robin Hood turned up for an archery contest organised by the Sheriff of Nottingham, he was taking a great risk - the event was almost certainly a trap for the outlaw. Hundreds gathered outside the walls of Nottingham as the contest became a shoot-off between Robin and the sheriff's stooge, 'Gilbert with the White Hand'. To make it harder, a willow wand replaced the target. With deadly accuracy, Robin split it; Gilbert missed. During the presentation ceremony, the sheriff reneged on his promise not to arrest Robin - but Robin escaped.

6. Wylie pulls off croquet's big break

Cambridge maths don Keith Wylie prompted a rare raucous reaction from a croquet crowd at the British Open championship in 1971 when he performed the first sextuple peel in competition - getting two croquet balls through six hoops consecutively, probably harder to do than a 147 in snooker.

7. Ellsworth Vines and tennis's vanishing serve

Ellsworth Vines delivered a serve to win the 1932 Wimbledon title that his opponent, Britain's Bunny Austin, said might have passed him on the forehand side - but it might have been the backhand. Authors John Barrett and Alan Little described it thus: 'He swung at the ball and it seemed to vanish ... It was a cannonball delivery to end all cannonball deliveries.'

8. The shot heard 'round the world

Deadlocked for first place in the 1951 National League, the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers had split the first two games of their play-off. In the final inning in the decider, Brooklyn led 4-2 and needed only to close out the final two batters for victory. Then the Polo Grounds crowd witnessed 'the shot heard 'round the world'. With two men left on base, Bobby Thomson, an immigrant Scot, launched Ralph Branca's pitch deep into the left field stands for a home run, taking the Giants to a 5-4 win, and the crowd erupted. Fans carried Thomson on their shoulders. Afterwards he headed for the subway, paid his fare and took the Staten Island ferry home.

9. Laettner beats the buzzer

Buzzer beaters - shots taken under extreme pressure as game time expires - are the most dramatic moments in basketball. In 1992, Christian Laettner secured a famous overtime victory for Duke, 104-103 over Kentucky, during a college tournament final. He caught Grant Hill's 75-foot throw from the back of the court with his back to the basket, faked one direction, then spun the other and launched a jump shot from the foul line, 13 feet out. Like every other shot he took that day, it went in.

10. Trott clears the rooftop

One historian noted of Albert Trott, a Test all-rounder for both his native Australia and England in the 1890s, that his batting was 'sprinkled with blows that remain part of cricket legend' - including, for MCC against the Australians at Lord's in July 1899, a six that cleared the pavilion and dropped into a garden in Grove End Road. For the rest of his career he tried to emulate what remains a unique feat. He shot himself in his lodgings in 1914.